First impressions:
1) The game desktop icon has changed!
I don't think it ever did with any old patches.
Also, in the UBI Launcher I appear to be starting SoD, although I have not purchased it yet.

2) BlackHole logo animation after the movie intro has been replaced with Virtous!
In the screen with the company names/logos after the initial loading screen, BlackHole logo is also gone and replaced with Virtous.
It seems it was Virtous who are responsible for the update screw-up.
For the Russian version, it says "Virtous China" in the patch installer screen, not sure if all patch versions (English/French/etc) are made by the China studio, but the word "China" makes me shudder after I saw my game becoming unplayable - a problem I have fixed since then, however.

Any idea who Virtous are and what they worked on for Heroes VI?
Link: Wiki link
I never played the two smaller DLCs or SoD, so maybe they worked on that.

I recently installed 2.1 and 2.1.1, and immediately noticed that I am getting some new creatures in stacks. Things like shadow wolves, shadow panthers, ..., black dragons. I believe that they are part of dungeon -- which is not in the game I have (original, with no DLC nor SoD).

Is it just the one faction?

Where can I read about these creatures to learn their features?
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Grey Beards of the world, Unite :-}}

The way the game works (and you could see his on the DLC's) when an expansion is created, the new features such as artifacts, creatures, and map objects, basically everything you can't lock, is added to to games random generator.
Tha patch 2.1 basically added the whole (50)SoD expansion into your game data, along with all the creatures in it (aprox. 16 of them) and two new sets of Artifacts. You can now encounter these in your random games.

The problem is, that if you do not own the exapnsion (apart from not beeing able to play dungeon and its stories) the characteristics of the new creatures do not save themselves from in your in game bestiary.. Try to look at some fan-sites (I would recomend Acid cave (PL)).
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I'm just a Mirror of your self.

We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.

I, Dies_Irae, seated on a throne of marble, am a proud member of the Shadow Council that is now busy discussing the events that will lead to Might and Magic: Heroes VII. I have experienced a lot of discontent towards MMH6. People avoided it, people hated it, people believed it to be a disgrace to the franchise, etc. etc. All those who do like H6 seem to have little to no taste at all.

So be it. I openly declare my appreciation for the game. Thank you.

But WHY do I like H6? Let that be the topic of this post, which I believe is quite at home here, because I could only start playing the game after installing patch 2.1, and later 2.1.1. Yes, that's where it went wrong at first. I got a new pc, which was able to play H6, but the game kept freezing when entering towns. Very annoying, until I got the patch. After that, I was finally able to explore the world of Ashan as it was around 564 YSD.

Fortunately, being accustomed to HoMM (I've played 3, 4, and 5 including the expansions), learning to get along in H6 wasn't difficult. Still, there appeared to be numerous new elements I had not seen before. An entire dynasty? Fascinating. Experience points that give you dynasty seals for...new stuff! Heroes, traits, even weapons. Holy Blades, Dynasty Weapons? Special artefacts that gain experience along with your hero, and can provide bonuses? Golden move. And look! Achievements. At least now you can get something more from playing campaigns other than the story that is being told. Truly interesting. Uplay points for extra stuff? Awesome.

Right, gameplay. Town, a hero, moving about to collect resources, flagging buildings, map locations, nothing out of the ordinary. Wait a second, we can CONVERT towns? So...if you start as Haven, you won't have to worry about every other town belonging to a different faction, making army-expansion quite hard? That. Is. Interesting. However, as I learned, converting costs resources, and the more developed a town is, the more expensive it is. Okay, no big deal. But...why can't I buy creatures in both Haven towns? Oh, they belong to what we call a 'pool'. Sure, that's okay. At least you can increase their growth by building fortifications ánd upgraded dwellings! So if you have like 5 towns, your creature production is getting out of hand. Where do I get the resources to buy them?

That's definately a feature that I enjoyed. Tactical choices must be made: do you equip one hero with an army, or do you allow a second hero to get a few weeks worth of production so you have a buffer? That's an option I had to choose on multiple occasion because of annoying, roaming enemy heroes. Later I discovered that you can counter these heroes by...TOWN PORTALS. I knew the one from H5, it just took you to the nearest one. ATP does that too, but the whole system allows you to travel from town to town, and together with the Planeswalker trait, you can use that to your advantage. Also, it is a way of trolling the opponent. Sending two attack waves to two towns, and the enemy can only go to one at a time (at least...on Easy). Yes, building an ATP is a must in the early stages of the game.

Area control, I forgot about area control. No more enemy heroes stealing your mines right in front of you. Now they have to capture your town or...Fort? What? Hey, that's new. Forts provide money, those belonging to your own faction generate more cash. And, when defending, provide with a siege wall. You can portal to them to defend and move about more quickly. Ain't that sweet. At least you can keep your mines a bit safer now.

Again we see artefact sets, like in H5. Good choice to keep that one. Lads, take to the seas. Oh, boats cost some resources, but hey, what doesn't. Boarding them is a piece of strawberry cake but…no loss of movement points? What is this sorcery? And unboarding…same story. That is definately an improvement, once again something to consider tactically. Okay, moving on…let’s fight some creatures. Blam, level up. That means: choosing skills. But what do have here? Might skills and magic skills…it seems the Might hero doesn’t have full acces to Magic and vice versa. Makes sense. Magic heroes can’t choose all schools, there are always one or two schools unavailable. Is that a problem? Not really. Time Stasis? Meditation? Implosion? Epic. Too bad Stronghold heroes can’t get them. Level 15 Might abilities, such as…Cleave, Heroic Charge…and don’t forget stuff like Toughness or Counterstrike, Economy, extra might power or defense. Yes, every hero can get the same stuff, but for that we have faction-specific powers you can use in-battle. This makes the distinction between heroes from different factions.
Are we going to spill blood, or shed tears? You can choose your path, your destiny, and gain new abilities through this. Do you understand how much you are in trouble if you face a Level 30 Inferno Pyromancer with the Armageddon-ability? That is definately my favorite of all. Especially if you equip said hero with the Will of Urgash at level 5. Dynasty Weapons are gold, as said before. What would I do without them?

And lo and behold, Boss Creatures. Never seen those before in HoMM, just…boss heroes? They often give you a hard time with their numerous abilities and wicked strength. Definately a heroic fight, worthy of a game like this. And the song that’s being played…that just makes it better. About the songs…love them. Great themes, faction-specific starting music, etc. Good one, very good indeed. Speaking of abilities, by the way, creatures have quite a lot of them, compared to other installments. Well, that makes them more versatile, I guess. Never underestimate a Cerberus! Why do they call it a Cerberus anway, it just has two heads! Oh well, that must be a new interpretation of the creature. New creatures abide! Lamasus? Never seen those before. Vermin-puking, winged monsters with toxic-green breath. Very disturbing, tough, but when deployed well a true pain in the ass. That basically goes for a lot of creatures.

Then there’s the storyline. I was kind of amazed to find out you could just play the campaigns in any order you liked, provided you completed the prologue first. No need to start with Haven if you can go with Necropolis too, right? The drawback of this was some overlap between stories, something you would understand better after playing another campaign. Still, together with the epilogues a good storyline, interesting characters (but by Elrath’s tail I hated that Anton dude in his first level) and definately an addition to the already rich storyline of Ashan. And those characters...they become available after completing the campaign! Campaign heroes for use in normal maps and duels and multiplayer and...why did H5 not have this? Why did all the other games not have this?

If I think of other +1 points about the game, I will post them here. This will do for now. Please, fellow fans of the franchise, don’t burn me at the stake. This is just my opinion, my point of view. I don’t ask you to agree, nor do I expect you to. I just want to let you know why I like H6.

Dies_Irae said:I, Dies_Irae, seated on a throne of marble, am a proud member of the Shadow Council that is now busy discussing the events that will lead to Might and Magic: Heroes VII. I have experienced a lot of discontent towards MMH6. People avoided it, people hated it, people believed it to be a disgrace to the franchise, etc. etc. All those who do like H6 seem to have little to no taste at all.

So be it. I openly declare my appreciation for the game. Thank you.

Welp...everything you found "interesting" and "sweet" I consider as booring and stupid.
Boss fights were really something new which wasn't bad actually. Maybe they were out of general line but at least they were a lil bit interesting than other innovations. But whatever, your opinion is yours. ____________

Before Patch 2.1 I would have answered: No, don't even try. The most game-breaking bug of all was the freezing townscreen. Now, though, Heroes 6 runs like a charm (at least on my machine). There are, however, still some bugs around. Some noticeable, some not at first sight. Entering a battle might still end up in a black screen, so you have to restart the game. The Dynasty Title tab opens upward instead of downward. If you duel someone, the Dynasty Pet 'Shadow panther cub' might cause some trouble. And recently I noticed a tiny flaw in the Fury's attack-and-stay animation (she spins around for no reason).

The latest patch is 2.1.1, by the way.

Final verdict: go and give it a try, it's definately much better now .
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==Uplay/Steam: Marblethrone==

yogi said:i have my game set to auto-update, and its only version 2.1... how do i get v2.1.1?

If you are using uplay, you need to manually update the game. Check this link, and you will be able to update the game.

As for buggy or not, the best answer is try to play. There are people (as I could see on the forum) that can play the game easily. I can tell you a different story: it doesn't work on any of my computers (1 desktop and 2 laptops). Oh and, laptops were not officially supported for H6 . In other words, it is a gamble: for you the game could work perfectly, or it will be unplayable.
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"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN

Once patched to 2.1.1, the game works only if it is launched in Windowed Mode only. After launch, you can reset it to Full Screen at any resolution of your display's recommended resolution.

Problem is: The fix has to be re-applied every time you wish to launch this game.

The instructions on how to apply this fix is located in the forum topic of: Game crashes?

BTW: All Non-GoG Galaxy game client title of the series of HoMM has to have Uplay in order to launch and play the games(Heroes VI/VII). Steam purchased or not. You need to install the Uplay game client in order to properly launch and play the above mentioned titles.

Enjoy playing the whole series of HoMM at your own leisure people!

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Now, all 7 titles can be played on Windows 10 Home/Pro Editions. Thanks to the good ole' Gog.com people, all the series can be played on any decent multi-core PC.